


Nor Grows With Heat

by Crowgirl



Series: On the Strength of the Evidence [41]
Category: Grantchester (TV)
Genre: Hot Weather, M/M, Not Beta Read, Pining, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-22 16:47:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11971509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowgirl/pseuds/Crowgirl
Summary: Even with the office door propped as wide as it will go, the inside of the police station feels like a particularly poorly ventilated oven.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kivrin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kivrin/gifts).



‘Just turn the fan on,’ Geordie says without looking up when Sidney gets up to stand by the window for the third time.

Even with the office door propped as wide as it will go, the inside of the police station feels like a particularly poorly ventilated oven. Every man on duty has removed as much uniform as is allowable under the code and Sidney suspects Geordie has kicked his shoes off under his desk. Standing by the open window, even if it means he gets the occasional lungful of exhaust from the car park, is slightly preferable to sitting in the wooden chair across from Geordie.

At least, Sidney thinks hopelessly, fixing his eyes on the retreating bumper of someone’s car, it means he can’t possibly be caught staring. He hadn't counted on the fact that warm weather would mean Geordie went in shirtsleeves more often and, honestly, a heatwave in April was simply unfair. If it does break tomorrow, as promised, he can't decide whether he'll be more glad or more disappointed. ‘What fan?’

‘Mm?' Geordie glances up, then waves a hand towards the filing cabinet, half-buried as usual under things that should probably be either inside it or somewhere else entirely. ‘It’s over there somewhere.’

Sidney resists the urge to roll his eyes and cautiously removes the uppermost tier of a stack of folders. When nothing cascades down on him, he keeps going. He has no idea where any of this might be put more usefully, so he just makes a new pile. ‘For heaven’s sake, Geordie…’

‘What?’

Sidney goes down on one knee and yanks a cardboard box -- full of bricks by the feel of it -- out from in front of a metal desk fan. ‘What good is it supposed to do you back here?’

Geordie blinks as Sidney turns around, still on one knee, and puts the fan on his desk. ‘I needed it out of the way at the end of last summer.’

‘And decided to bury it forever?’ Sidney gets up and kicks the box of bricks back into place. ‘And what on earth is _in_ this?’

Geordie leans over and eyes the box for a minute before snapping his fingers. ‘Old reports. Last century. They used to bind ‘em up by year. I was looking for something.’ He frowns. ‘Can’t remember what, though.’

‘So they don’t _actually_ belong in a cardboard box in the corner of your office where no-one else could possibly find them?’

Geordie shakes his head as if the question is entirely irrelevant and unwraps the cord from the fan, bending it back along itself to get the kinks out. ‘There’s a note in the records room.’ He blows on the blades and cage of the fan, raising a small cloud of dust. ‘Everyone knows I’ve got ‘em.’

Sidney groans and drops back into his chair. 

Geordie pushes his chair back and plugs the fan in and gives Sidney a sharp look as he pulls himself back to his desk. ‘Like your office is a model of efficiency?’

‘At least I’m only hiding things from myself!’ Sidney reaches around and undoes his collar, pulling the false front free with an involuntary sigh of relief. He drops it on the floor beside his chair and undoes the top two buttons of his shirt, plucking at them to get some cooler air against his sweaty skin. He’s going to have to dig out some of the simpler collars -- the false front is fine for cold weather and he prefers it for the sake of ease but it’s horribly uncomfortable in the summer. 

When he looks up, wondering why Geordie hasn’t volleyed something back about Sidney being the most successful hide and seek player of all time or something of the sort, he catches Geordie’s eyes on him for a moment before Geordie looks back down at the file on his desk, then at the fan, fiddling with the base. Sidney would say that Geordie's blushing -- but it’s ridiculously hot in here; he’s sure he’s red in the face, too. 

‘Here.' Geordie picks the fan up and swings it around, planting it firmly so it points directly at Sidney. ‘Can’t have you fainting away in the heat.’

Sidney does roll his eyes that time, and then gets up, drags his chair to the narrow end of Geordie's desk, plops the Latin dictionary he had been consulting down on the desk, and reaches over to adjust the fan so the stream of air moves over both of them. ‘There.’

Geordie clears his throat and shifts a stack of files from his left to his right elbow, giving Sidney more room on the desktop. ‘Any luck?’

‘No, nothing. I don’t suppose you’d let me ask Leonard, would you?’

‘If you can do it without letting him know what it’s about.’

Sidney makes a noncommittal noise and reaches for the scene photo again. ‘He'd probably wonder what the hell I was getting up to in my spare time.’ The words are smeared across a high brick wall -- they’re quite definitely not English, but Sidney’s beginning to doubt his original decision that they were Latin. 

Geordie laughs, leaning back in his chair with his hands loose and open on the file in front of him. ‘He doesn’t do that already?’

Sidney turns the photo upside down, squinting at it -- perhaps whoever painted them had been hanging _over_ the wall rather than standing in front of it? It seems unlikely to him but he’s learned over the years that saying something is too foolish for an undergraduate to do is asking to be proved wrong.

‘Well--’ He glances up at Geordie and the words go out of his head. 

Geordie isn't looking at him; he's absorbed in cuffing the sleeves of his shirt more tightly, shoving the white cloth up above his elbows so the lean length of his forearm shows. Geordie reaches up to undo another button of his shirt -- the placket falls open just enough that Sidney can see the divot of Geordie’s collarbone, the very top of his vest, and the shadowy suggestion of chest hair pressed flat by the thin cloth. Geordie swipes a hand around the back of his neck and under his chin, muttering something about this much heat this early in the year, and the skin of his throat is glistening, damp with sweat, and Sidney’s not sure he's ever going to be able to stand up from this chair again because if he moves, he’s not going to be able to stop himself leaning forward and--

Geordie leans forward and takes the photograph from Sidney’s fingers, squaring his elbows on the desktop and frowning at the black-and-white. ‘Maybe it’s Russian.’


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The other side of the desk.

If Sidney doesn’t stop fidgeting about, Geordie’s going to throw something at him. ‘Just -- plug the fan in.’

‘What fan?’ Sidney shoves the window open another inch -- the last inch it will go -- and cranes to get what little breeze there is.

Geordie glances up, then fixes his eyes firmly on the typed pages in front of him. He can’t see them for a moment; all he can see is the lingering afterimage of the sweat-damp curls at the back of Sidney's neck, but he’s pleased that his voice sounds normal. ‘Somewhere -- over there.’ He waves at the corner by the file cabinet where he’s fairly sure he’d stuck his desk fan at the end of last summer.

Sidney makes a vague grumbling noise, but starts shifting folders and papers. ‘Good grief, Geordie, what _is_ all this?’

‘All what?’ Geordie doesn't let himself look up. 

‘Did you decide to bury the fan from the world for a reason? What good is it supposed to do you back here?’

‘I just put it out of the way.’

Sidney makes a disbelieving noise and Geordie looks up in time to see him kneel down and lean forward to pull the metal fan out of the back corner. He pivots on his knee and drops the fan in front of Geordie with a flourish. ‘And what _is_ this?’

Geordie has to lean around the end of his desk to see what Sidney’s talking about. It looks like a cardboard box and for a moment all he can think is that it was probably left over from his last attempt at cleaning -- perhaps he had meant to arrange files in it or-- ‘Oh! Old reports. Last century. They used to bind ‘em up by year. I was looking for something.’ He frowns at the box. ‘Don’t remember what, though.’

‘So they’re not _supposed_ to live in a box in the corner of your office where no-one else could possibly find them?’ Sidney shoves the box back against the wall with his foot and drops back into his chair. 

‘There’s a note in the records room,’ Geordie says defensively, unwinding the cord from the base of the fan. ‘Everyone knows I’ve got ‘em.’

Sidney snorts and runs a finger around the inside of his collar, then reaches back to undo the stud. 

Geordie fixes his eyes on the cord, bending it back along its length to work out the kink from being coiled for so long. ‘And your office is perfectly organized?’

‘At least I’m the only one who can complain if something gets lost,’ Sidney retorts.

‘Mm.’ Geordie leans back and plugs the fan in, then blows the worst of the dust off the blades and cage before flipping it on. It’s a sturdy old thing -- been around the station longer than he has -- and it takes a moment to catch up, but steadily picks up speed. He looks up at Sidney in satisfaction and loses track of what he had been about to say.

Sidney’s pulled off his collar and the attached oval of black cloth that makes up the false shirtfront. Geordie’s no idea what he's done with them, but now he’s also undone the first few buttons on his shirt and is plucking at the fronts, clearly trying to get some air on his skin and oh, God, Geordie is quite definitely going to hell for thinking things like this about a vicar.

Geordie clears his throat and turns the fan so it’s squarely on Sidney. ‘There.’ He smirks when Sidney looks up at him in surprise. ‘Can’t have you swooning away in the heat.’

Sidney rolls his eyes and, to Geordie’s surprise, drags his chair around to the end of the desk, pushes a pile of Geordie’s papers out of the way, and drops the Latin dictionary he’s been flipping through for the best part of the last hour in the clean space. Then he reaches out and adjusts the fan, turning it so the current of air moves over them both. Geordie gets a brief whiff of clean sweat and shaving soap and keeps himself from moving to follow the scent only with a distinct effort -- Sidney’s arm is _right there,_ he can see the faint gleam of sweat on his skin, the rough hair that even after only a few days of sun is starting to taken on a golden sheen, the pull of skin over muscle at the bend of his elbow--

‘There,’ Sidney says. ‘Much better.’

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Shakespeare's [Sonnet CXXIV.](http://www.bartleby.com/70/50124.html)


End file.
